scienceindicators

Water Holding Capacity (Site Level)

Measures a soil's ability to retain water at a detailed 100m scale, essential for evaluating drought resilience, flood resilience and effectiveness of regenerative practices at site level.

unit

m³ (total and per hectare)

historic data availability

description

Measures the maximum amount of water a particular soil can retain. This is a fundamental soil property that influences drought resilience, irrigation needs, and nutrient availability for plants. Understanding a soil's water holding capacity is essential for optimizing agricultural practices, assessing land suitability, and managing water resources efficiently. This data is provided at a 100m resolution to support detailed-scale analysis.

methodology

Water holding capacity is estimated based on soil moisture dynamics over time, analyzing the ability of soil to retain water against gravity (also known as field capacity). It is derived from a time-series of soil moisture data and constrained by soil texture information from SoilGrids.